New Orleans, for a city where we spend so much time on the pavement, doesn't have much street food. The New Orleans Jazz Festival presented by Shell also has a dearth of dishes you can eat on the move.

Todd Price / The Times-PicayuneFresh, hot crawfish bread from New Orleans Jazz Festival.For me, street food isn't served on a plate. You don't need a fork or knife to eat it. All you need is one hand.

Lots of people order a crawfish bread from Panaroma Food (Food Area I) when they need Jazz Fest sustenance on the go. Personally, I've never been a fan. Each year, though, I dutifully eat one in the hopes of understanding why it makes most people rave. This year's sample didn't change my mind. My crawfish bread had too much bread, cheese that had cooled enough to be stiff and a smattering of tough crawfish.

Scattered across Jazz Fest, however, are hand pies that you can easily eat without fighting for one of the few tables at the Fair Grounds.

Cajun Nights Catering makes a great alligator pie (Food Area I) that's a flaky envelope filled with a spicy mix of chopped alligator meat and rice.

Mrs. Wheat's (Food Area II) is well known for its Natchitoches meat pie, but the crawfish pie is just as good. The blistering hot pie is stuffed with a saucy filling of bell peppers, rice and plump crawfish.

Most meat pies are a mystery until you bite into them, but not the curry chicken pattie by Palmer's Jamaican Cuisine (Congo Square). The yellow stained crust, stiffer and drier than our local meat pies, gives a hint of the curry inside. The pattie has a touch of sweetness to balance that heat, which builds as you eat and leaves your mouth burning.

Pick up one of Marie's Sugar Dumplings' creamy sweet potato turnovers (Congo Square), and you can skip the utensils as well for dessert. Make sure you ask for a glaze of butter cream icing. It's not on the menu, but you'll want it.